To clarify the comment about how QBs were acquired, I mean by their current team. So while Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff were #1 picks, they were easily acquired by their current teams.
Hhmmm. The old QB replacement discussion to get tongues (thumbs?) wagging.
I think Geno has improved this year, but still has plenty of ways to improve IMO. He is 33yo, which is still a good age, but nearing, if not already at, the peak of that hill (Trust me, I know). If, as someone commented recently, the Seahawks are in their window currently, then we better start thinking about picking up a serious contender for our QB future to blood. How long does that window last? And do the Seahawks have the time to build that SB team with Geno? I hope so. But is Geno the one we need to build around? Is there enough time to do that, given his age and inconsistencies? Again, I hope so (but I’m having trouble believing it).
What concerns me is that despite the change in coordinators, there remain significant stretches in every game where the offense disappears. I can ascribe only so much of that to the OL. Also, and I’m just guessing here, I wonder how many other QBs come close to Geno’s ratio of one TD pass per forty attempts.
Is Geno the guy to build around? The jury is definitely out but there will be evidence for the case for/against on Thursday.
The Niners D can be beat, the Rams and Cards both managed to do it. If the Seahawks can’t put points up vs the Niners it won’t be long after that before Howell will get a shot. A more mobile QB will help to mitigate the OL issues and might actually help.
(On D, to win, the Seahawks will need a much better effort plus Mafe coming back close to 100 percent.)
Look, I would love to be excited about…or even just mildly optimistic about…our new coaching staff. But it plainly defies logic to hire FNG’s across the board to coach the team - and it’s even more delusional to hire coaches who don’t have prior experience working together.
Mike MacDonald was hired because, according to the GM and senior team officials, the team was underperforming with competitive talent. He looks increasingly like a coach who can’t improve the performance of his primary responsibility(defense), let alone contribute to the success of the offense and special teams.
OTOH, if talent is (and was) the problem, then Schneider just seriously and perhaps fatally handicapped his shiny new HC. The average tenure of an NFL head coach is three years. We’ll see.
Mike hired guys who have proven talents for teaching their specialty, whereas Pete went with guys he'd worked with and stuck with them. It was recognized as a gamble for JS to buy into it. We'll now see. The onus right now is on the O-Line Coach and let's face it: it is awfully early to draw conclusions. Certainly not looking good yet. I'm surprised we haven't seen Olu tried out at Guard, if only to see how he'd do. Maybe it's a contract thing? Performance issue? Something's off.
I don’t think either one of these statements is accurate.
MacDonald has no experience as an NFL head coach. Durde, Grubb, and Harbaugh have no experience as NFL coordinators. None of them have experience working with each other (except a brief overlap between MacDonald and Harbaugh at Michigan). Grubb and the new OL coach worked together at Washington, but the OL coach doesn’t have NFL experience, either. This is, frankly, the exact opposite of sound hiring practice.
The most important criteria in hiring external candidates is a record of success and direct experience in the role you are trying to fill. When you promote from within, you can be less conservative about the record of success, because typically you have years of experience to rely on to evaluate the candidate.
It became a narrative that Pete didn’t hire unknowns to his staff. But this is obviously untrue: Waldron, Scott and Desai were all unknown to him prior to the hires. Yes, he promoted Hurtt from within, and that hire didn’t work out. Yes, he rehired Tater when he had the opportunity to do it, but why is that a bad thing?
Pete aside, my point here is that Mike MacDonald has not been set up for success as a first-time HC. In fact, it’s the opposite. The coaching staff is a conglomeration of unrelated parts, instead of a team of coaches with complementary strengths.
Can it all come together? Sure. Anything can happen. But it’s highly unlikely that all the 1st time hires will be able to overcome that hurdle together.
These are all good points and it doesn't have to be the message of doom and gloom that some may make of it. It's true that this coaching staff will face some self-imposed challenges and we'd be lucky if all the final pieces were in place from day one. Leslie Frazier was brought in mostly just to help navigate these challenges (I think). Hopefully we got the head coach part right, and he's able to bring out the best in everybody else and know when to replace the people who's best isn't good enough.
Geno is unique. He is 33 and hasn't suffered the many concussions QBs his age have, making them rather fragile. Concussions come easier as they progress in numbers. Doctors now remove you from playing if they observe a hard hit and certainly if you appear momentarily rattled (who wouldn't?), whether your pupils dilate or not. Once was, you could choose to keep playing, now that choice has been removed. I expect to start seeing an increase in veteran QBs taken out under "medical protocols" at any time in any game.
I recall watching one play yesterday, 'hawks on D...looked like two middle LB's were having a bit of a confrontation on who was supposed to be where...it really caught my eye at the time. I'll queue up my recording & see if I can find it...perhaps somebody can interpret it for me...
2:05 left in the 4th. Jenkins looked like he was trying to move Dodson to the left. Dodson wouldn't go.
It goes by pretty fast, cutting from an endzone shot to sideline. Although now that I think about it...it lasts longer if I turn the playback speed back down to normal...
It just looked odd to me, like they could not agree on what should happen. It didn't result in a very large gain, but Jenkins ran right back over to where it looked like he thought he was supposed to be.
Did you notice your buddy over on All22 dropped a film study on yesterday's defensive performance by the 'hawks? Very interesting...
Reserving overall judgement on the team until post-49ers. Like, if we beat the 49ers, then the opening 6 games looks wildly different. 4-2 through 6 weeks would be where most of us had the team pre-season. Ok beating SF feels like a long shot but that's the big red circled game on the calendar this side of Halloween, and where I will truly judge where we stand as a team.
Giants certainly amplified our weaknesses - O-Line & Run D above all else. I'll take a positive view that this, along with the reaction to the game from media, analysists, and the fans, will give the whole team a bit of kick up the ass. The team so often feels quite close to clicking and turning the corner, it'd be a great time to do so.
Or maybe the 49ers monster us, again, and we're a 3-3 which feels a lot more like a 1-5 and staring down a hard 2nd half of the year, feeling like perhaps we're not heading in the right direction at all.
Other than the final phrase, "feeling like perhaps we're not heading in the right direction at all" I agreed with your analysis. To me, even if we are blown out by the Niners, I won't doubt the direction we are going. We have too many injuries and too poor of run defense as a result, that I will still expect good things going forward. Mafe, Nwosu, and Leonard Williams all being injured sort of takes the thunder out of our defense.
100%, a lot changes depending on what happens in 2 days, even if we're overrating that result. If the Seahawks lose though, they'll be 0-3 conference, 0-1 division, so maybe a loss would be a lot harder to swallow than a win would guarantee a shot at winning the west. We'll see how they play.
Okay, I slept on it. Yesterday, we met a group of Serious Men who had enough of playing like shit. If they got beat, they didn't get beat again. They came back with a vengeance. They have mouths to feed. They were up against a bunch of young guys on a new Team trying to find the Serious Man inside themselves. MM and Grubb didn't fool anybody with schemes on either side of the ball. The Giants read you. Nothing succeeds in this Game like Kicking Ass, so they kicked down the doors and knocked over the walls. It's how Michigan beat UDub not long ago. Grandpa Pete isn't around to play Daddy anymore, boys. Shake it off. Lean on each other. You have your weapons and have been given damn good tools/solid planning. Use them. It is time to get Serious. Find that and nobody will remain standing against us. You were just blessed with a hard lesson on how to beat Frisco with no time and little rest. We should be thanking Daboll and his guys for showing us the way.
The Geno Smith story arc is one of the funniest things to watch unfold:
2022
- Geno Smith sucks and the Seahawks are a joke
2023
- Ok Geno Smith doesn't suck but he is not a "Franchise QB" and can't win you a Super Bowl
- The Seahawks will cut Geno
- The Seahawks will trade Geno
2024
- This is Geno's last year because his salary cap hit in 2025 is $38.5M and the Seahawks will surely cut him then
- Whoops! Ok Geno Smith so good that he costs too much money like $50M a year and now we should trade/cut him after the season
Note: This is not a Joe comment this is just funny to me.
The NFL is a salary cap league and it is all about having players outplay their contracts. It is not about having a "franchise QB" as the ESPN talking heads would lead you to believe. Many teams have a "franchise QB" and suck. While others have a journeyman and can play. Look at Russell Wilson. We traded away a "franchise QB" and got better and have a significantly better chance now than we did with him.
I think it is fair to question just what these teams should pay Geno/Darnold/Baker etc. It's funny that some Seahawks "fans" told me that there is no way the Seahawks will keep Geno in 2025 because of a $38.5M cap hit. The reality? The Seahawks would be getting a steal at $38.5M a year cap hit. These fans were absurdly wrong. Having said that is Geno worth $50M? as Daniel Jeremiah alluded to last week.
Always the question in a salary cap league. To me, it depends on where you believe the team is at and also how you value DK (WR1) compared to Geno (QB1) and what would it take to keep both while making sure the future includes guys like Cross who are getting closer to new contracts. The other question is how much worse the next QB in line to Geno is (rookie/FA/Howell). I don't see Howell as being a viable option yet. Look at what Jayden Daniels is doing with the talent in Washington. Doesn't bode well for Howell, IMO.
I've had a night to reflect and I still think the Niners are going to win Thursday by 30-40 points. 3 games in 11 days means the team is usually worn out by game 3 and they already played like they were worn out in game 2. Ol' Macdonald better find a way to whip this team into shape so they don't get completely embarrassed out there.
I hate to "like" your comment, but I feel the same and I'm worried about the potential for an embarrassing blow out. A competitive loss would still give me hope that this team has the heart and leadership to continue making progress. How this team deals with adversity will say a lot about our new coaching staff, and if the players have truly bought in.
On the comments about Geno being worth it or not, so much depends on what you see. I think any QB would struggle with ZERO time behind an offensive line that SSJ pointed out is collectively being paid less than our “star” tight end who frequently doesn’t seem to be as good as the rookie tight end (Barner). And look: Colby Parkinson is being used all over the place by the Rams, even if they keep losing. (The point: I think we kept the wrong guy.)
Anyway, you cannot divorce the player from the situation. Sure, Lamar would run away from more of the trouble plaguing Geno, but Lamar also doesn’t read the field as well. If they actually EVER invested in the offensive line, sure, put a scrub back there. Brock Purdy is better than we thought he was, but he’s usually protected! So it’s very hard to gauge if Geno is “worth it” because that’s a question in a vacuum.
Likewise, expecting McDonald to magic a defense that he mostly didn’t draft but inherited and “poof” it into the Ravens D is silly. Pete’s first few seasons in Seattle included drafting several very bad QBs and because Seattle had seen so many years of meh since their one trip to the SB, we were ok with more meh while Pete figured it out. And guess what the earlier SB team and the Obama-era SB teams had: OFFENSIVE LINES! Funny how it works like that. Daniel Jones cannot throw a deep ball with a year behind his line, but he does have one. So I think the talk of paying Geno maybe should happen in the same quadrant of doing what the rest of the league does and paying for guards and tackles to protect the QB, whoever that guy is. And the pressure should go upward from McDonald to Schneider, because now that Schneider is really running the show it should be on him to make this engine go, otherwise he’s expecting miracles and that cannot be “schemed” or coached. Talent matters.
If we're lucky, the 49ers are much worse than we've given them credit for based on their recent success in past season. They're 0-2 in division, so they might actually feel worse than the Seahawks do.
And that means they are going to come out pissed off and ready to crush people. How the Seahawks respond to that will tell a lot about the nature of this team.
Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers offense are really good at all the things we've struggled to contain on defense the last two weeks. They run well, they set up short passes for yac opportunities, and their QB is slippery when pressured. Geno and the offense are going to need to keep pace, because the defense ain't gonna improve much in three days. We can't win without running the ball.
The first game back from an injury often is a game where the player plays below the level expected. That seems to happen more often than not. Baker, Leonard Williams, Nwosu, were all in that situation. Nwosu was injured again, and Williams did he get re-injured? Jones was disappointing, and Hall disappeared after the first defensive series where he got another sack. But pressure was lacking.
Our OL gave up a lot of sacks. Too many to expect any kind of efficiency in the passing game, and early in the game, our running game sucks. Once the opponents are tired, we can muster some run blocking, but early in the game it seems non-existent.
I am wondering if it isn't zone coverage which keeps getting burned. I hope Woolen is OK because our third CB, Brown, was getting torched and breaking down like the weakest link in a rusty old anchor chain. They didn't care who was lined up against Brown, they always targeted him. But the RB out of the backfield was almost always uncovered. That needs to be fixed. And I wonder why they don't try Artie Burns, who always seemed to play at starter quality when he gets the chance. Tre Brown has got to be on a short leash after the stinker he put up.
Couple questions I heard brought up about Mac. Is it to much for him to HC and still be running the D at the same time? Everything Seattle defense did right the first few games, run fits, gang tackling, setting edge and QB pressure has just disappeared the last two weeks. It's not been perfect the first 3 weeks, but the last 2 seem to be another team were're looking at. Ryan Grubb. Let's see let's run K9 5 times and Charb 2 'x the whole game against the Giant's strength, the D Line. That makes perfect sense. Playing from behind is no excuse. Especially when you allow the Giants a full quarter or more possesion time offensivley than Seattle. Geno gets sacked 7 times (could have been more) when NY just pins their ears back not even considering run D. Seattle needs to reel it in. I'm seeing a lot of frustratiion in this team for this early in the season. Seattle is probably going to be embarrassed with Purdy sitting back in the pocket with no pressure. Injuries looks to insure that on the Seattle side. Let's call out Witherspoon as well, not just Brown. Pritchard might have potential. Offensively, DK fumbles just have to stop. It's easy to blame the O-Line for Seattle's offensive woes, but I think the scheme this last week was a headscratcher. I'm lookng ahead to the mini-bye and see who shows up at Atalanta to get an idea of what the rest of the season is going to look like. Seattle needs to hold on to some humility practice three things Vince Lombardi used to preach as the 3 keys to winning football. Fundementals, Fundementals and oh yes, Fundenmentals.
Sadly, it appears that Nwosu is the new Jamal Adams RE injuries. I know I'll probably get laughed at, but there is something energetically "off" with someone who repeatedly gets injured. Gotta protect your space better, buddy!
Well SJ you’ve often covered contracts. I’d say you can put Nwosu and Dre Mony into the how much we save category next year. Fyi style love Lockett (not at 2025 salary). That’s 2 of the DE/OLBs. Might make your draft prediction a little easier. Maybe take that Tyler savings and invest in OLine?
Just wanted to note that two positions the NFL (and Schneider in particular) don't seem to value -- interior offensive line and linebacker -- appear to be where we're getting thrashed. And, as one of the 7% who didn't expect much this year, I take no joy in being temporarily right. As I said at the time, it's likely to come down to injuries. Those last two games are different if our DL is made up of the starters who opened the season, in part because that seems to take pressure off our LBs, and maybe even the DBs. Also, a side thought, but as we evaluate the 'Hawks drafting habits, it might be helpful not to bunch the history of the franchise into one basket. Different ownership groups have placed different constraints on GMs. And a side thought to that, remember at some point Ms. Allen will be reading the franchise for sale. No idea how that impacts our choices for this season.
Hey, honestly, I want to follow the Hawks when they are an interesting team. It appears that for the moment they are not fully formed at all, as much as I had hoped. This last game was a clear indication of just that. They are still interesting, but they are not as compelling as I had hoped.
To clarify the comment about how QBs were acquired, I mean by their current team. So while Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff were #1 picks, they were easily acquired by their current teams.
Speaking of Flacco, I benched Mahomes and started him in the Seaside Joe fantasy league yesterday.
Dude and how about Alec Pierce? Some unbelievable plays!
Hhmmm. The old QB replacement discussion to get tongues (thumbs?) wagging.
I think Geno has improved this year, but still has plenty of ways to improve IMO. He is 33yo, which is still a good age, but nearing, if not already at, the peak of that hill (Trust me, I know). If, as someone commented recently, the Seahawks are in their window currently, then we better start thinking about picking up a serious contender for our QB future to blood. How long does that window last? And do the Seahawks have the time to build that SB team with Geno? I hope so. But is Geno the one we need to build around? Is there enough time to do that, given his age and inconsistencies? Again, I hope so (but I’m having trouble believing it).
What concerns me is that despite the change in coordinators, there remain significant stretches in every game where the offense disappears. I can ascribe only so much of that to the OL. Also, and I’m just guessing here, I wonder how many other QBs come close to Geno’s ratio of one TD pass per forty attempts.
Is Geno the guy to build around? The jury is definitely out but there will be evidence for the case for/against on Thursday.
The Niners D can be beat, the Rams and Cards both managed to do it. If the Seahawks can’t put points up vs the Niners it won’t be long after that before Howell will get a shot. A more mobile QB will help to mitigate the OL issues and might actually help.
(On D, to win, the Seahawks will need a much better effort plus Mafe coming back close to 100 percent.)
Geno was leading rusher. “More mobile”??? (Tongue in cheek)
HAH! But was the 1.5 yards he didn’t get that was the problem 😂. And the 6 sacks (or was it 7?).
The sacks ,(all but one ) weren't on Geno-
7
Look, I would love to be excited about…or even just mildly optimistic about…our new coaching staff. But it plainly defies logic to hire FNG’s across the board to coach the team - and it’s even more delusional to hire coaches who don’t have prior experience working together.
Mike MacDonald was hired because, according to the GM and senior team officials, the team was underperforming with competitive talent. He looks increasingly like a coach who can’t improve the performance of his primary responsibility(defense), let alone contribute to the success of the offense and special teams.
OTOH, if talent is (and was) the problem, then Schneider just seriously and perhaps fatally handicapped his shiny new HC. The average tenure of an NFL head coach is three years. We’ll see.
Mike hired guys who have proven talents for teaching their specialty, whereas Pete went with guys he'd worked with and stuck with them. It was recognized as a gamble for JS to buy into it. We'll now see. The onus right now is on the O-Line Coach and let's face it: it is awfully early to draw conclusions. Certainly not looking good yet. I'm surprised we haven't seen Olu tried out at Guard, if only to see how he'd do. Maybe it's a contract thing? Performance issue? Something's off.
I don’t think either one of these statements is accurate.
MacDonald has no experience as an NFL head coach. Durde, Grubb, and Harbaugh have no experience as NFL coordinators. None of them have experience working with each other (except a brief overlap between MacDonald and Harbaugh at Michigan). Grubb and the new OL coach worked together at Washington, but the OL coach doesn’t have NFL experience, either. This is, frankly, the exact opposite of sound hiring practice.
The most important criteria in hiring external candidates is a record of success and direct experience in the role you are trying to fill. When you promote from within, you can be less conservative about the record of success, because typically you have years of experience to rely on to evaluate the candidate.
It became a narrative that Pete didn’t hire unknowns to his staff. But this is obviously untrue: Waldron, Scott and Desai were all unknown to him prior to the hires. Yes, he promoted Hurtt from within, and that hire didn’t work out. Yes, he rehired Tater when he had the opportunity to do it, but why is that a bad thing?
Pete aside, my point here is that Mike MacDonald has not been set up for success as a first-time HC. In fact, it’s the opposite. The coaching staff is a conglomeration of unrelated parts, instead of a team of coaches with complementary strengths.
Can it all come together? Sure. Anything can happen. But it’s highly unlikely that all the 1st time hires will be able to overcome that hurdle together.
Here we go. Only five games in the epitaph is being written on why it failed. Ugh.
These are all good points and it doesn't have to be the message of doom and gloom that some may make of it. It's true that this coaching staff will face some self-imposed challenges and we'd be lucky if all the final pieces were in place from day one. Leslie Frazier was brought in mostly just to help navigate these challenges (I think). Hopefully we got the head coach part right, and he's able to bring out the best in everybody else and know when to replace the people who's best isn't good enough.
The O-line coach can't teach talent!
Geno is unique. He is 33 and hasn't suffered the many concussions QBs his age have, making them rather fragile. Concussions come easier as they progress in numbers. Doctors now remove you from playing if they observe a hard hit and certainly if you appear momentarily rattled (who wouldn't?), whether your pupils dilate or not. Once was, you could choose to keep playing, now that choice has been removed. I expect to start seeing an increase in veteran QBs taken out under "medical protocols" at any time in any game.
I recall watching one play yesterday, 'hawks on D...looked like two middle LB's were having a bit of a confrontation on who was supposed to be where...it really caught my eye at the time. I'll queue up my recording & see if I can find it...perhaps somebody can interpret it for me...
That's very interesting! I'd like to see that too.
2:05 left in the 4th. Jenkins looked like he was trying to move Dodson to the left. Dodson wouldn't go.
It goes by pretty fast, cutting from an endzone shot to sideline. Although now that I think about it...it lasts longer if I turn the playback speed back down to normal...
It just looked odd to me, like they could not agree on what should happen. It didn't result in a very large gain, but Jenkins ran right back over to where it looked like he thought he was supposed to be.
Did you notice your buddy over on All22 dropped a film study on yesterday's defensive performance by the 'hawks? Very interesting...
Reserving overall judgement on the team until post-49ers. Like, if we beat the 49ers, then the opening 6 games looks wildly different. 4-2 through 6 weeks would be where most of us had the team pre-season. Ok beating SF feels like a long shot but that's the big red circled game on the calendar this side of Halloween, and where I will truly judge where we stand as a team.
Giants certainly amplified our weaknesses - O-Line & Run D above all else. I'll take a positive view that this, along with the reaction to the game from media, analysists, and the fans, will give the whole team a bit of kick up the ass. The team so often feels quite close to clicking and turning the corner, it'd be a great time to do so.
Or maybe the 49ers monster us, again, and we're a 3-3 which feels a lot more like a 1-5 and staring down a hard 2nd half of the year, feeling like perhaps we're not heading in the right direction at all.
Other than the final phrase, "feeling like perhaps we're not heading in the right direction at all" I agreed with your analysis. To me, even if we are blown out by the Niners, I won't doubt the direction we are going. We have too many injuries and too poor of run defense as a result, that I will still expect good things going forward. Mafe, Nwosu, and Leonard Williams all being injured sort of takes the thunder out of our defense.
100%, a lot changes depending on what happens in 2 days, even if we're overrating that result. If the Seahawks lose though, they'll be 0-3 conference, 0-1 division, so maybe a loss would be a lot harder to swallow than a win would guarantee a shot at winning the west. We'll see how they play.
Okay, I slept on it. Yesterday, we met a group of Serious Men who had enough of playing like shit. If they got beat, they didn't get beat again. They came back with a vengeance. They have mouths to feed. They were up against a bunch of young guys on a new Team trying to find the Serious Man inside themselves. MM and Grubb didn't fool anybody with schemes on either side of the ball. The Giants read you. Nothing succeeds in this Game like Kicking Ass, so they kicked down the doors and knocked over the walls. It's how Michigan beat UDub not long ago. Grandpa Pete isn't around to play Daddy anymore, boys. Shake it off. Lean on each other. You have your weapons and have been given damn good tools/solid planning. Use them. It is time to get Serious. Find that and nobody will remain standing against us. You were just blessed with a hard lesson on how to beat Frisco with no time and little rest. We should be thanking Daboll and his guys for showing us the way.
The Geno Smith story arc is one of the funniest things to watch unfold:
2022
- Geno Smith sucks and the Seahawks are a joke
2023
- Ok Geno Smith doesn't suck but he is not a "Franchise QB" and can't win you a Super Bowl
- The Seahawks will cut Geno
- The Seahawks will trade Geno
2024
- This is Geno's last year because his salary cap hit in 2025 is $38.5M and the Seahawks will surely cut him then
- Whoops! Ok Geno Smith so good that he costs too much money like $50M a year and now we should trade/cut him after the season
Note: This is not a Joe comment this is just funny to me.
The NFL is a salary cap league and it is all about having players outplay their contracts. It is not about having a "franchise QB" as the ESPN talking heads would lead you to believe. Many teams have a "franchise QB" and suck. While others have a journeyman and can play. Look at Russell Wilson. We traded away a "franchise QB" and got better and have a significantly better chance now than we did with him.
I think it is fair to question just what these teams should pay Geno/Darnold/Baker etc. It's funny that some Seahawks "fans" told me that there is no way the Seahawks will keep Geno in 2025 because of a $38.5M cap hit. The reality? The Seahawks would be getting a steal at $38.5M a year cap hit. These fans were absurdly wrong. Having said that is Geno worth $50M? as Daniel Jeremiah alluded to last week.
Always the question in a salary cap league. To me, it depends on where you believe the team is at and also how you value DK (WR1) compared to Geno (QB1) and what would it take to keep both while making sure the future includes guys like Cross who are getting closer to new contracts. The other question is how much worse the next QB in line to Geno is (rookie/FA/Howell). I don't see Howell as being a viable option yet. Look at what Jayden Daniels is doing with the talent in Washington. Doesn't bode well for Howell, IMO.
The NFL is just always interesting.
I've had a night to reflect and I still think the Niners are going to win Thursday by 30-40 points. 3 games in 11 days means the team is usually worn out by game 3 and they already played like they were worn out in game 2. Ol' Macdonald better find a way to whip this team into shape so they don't get completely embarrassed out there.
I hate to "like" your comment, but I feel the same and I'm worried about the potential for an embarrassing blow out. A competitive loss would still give me hope that this team has the heart and leadership to continue making progress. How this team deals with adversity will say a lot about our new coaching staff, and if the players have truly bought in.
On the comments about Geno being worth it or not, so much depends on what you see. I think any QB would struggle with ZERO time behind an offensive line that SSJ pointed out is collectively being paid less than our “star” tight end who frequently doesn’t seem to be as good as the rookie tight end (Barner). And look: Colby Parkinson is being used all over the place by the Rams, even if they keep losing. (The point: I think we kept the wrong guy.)
Anyway, you cannot divorce the player from the situation. Sure, Lamar would run away from more of the trouble plaguing Geno, but Lamar also doesn’t read the field as well. If they actually EVER invested in the offensive line, sure, put a scrub back there. Brock Purdy is better than we thought he was, but he’s usually protected! So it’s very hard to gauge if Geno is “worth it” because that’s a question in a vacuum.
Likewise, expecting McDonald to magic a defense that he mostly didn’t draft but inherited and “poof” it into the Ravens D is silly. Pete’s first few seasons in Seattle included drafting several very bad QBs and because Seattle had seen so many years of meh since their one trip to the SB, we were ok with more meh while Pete figured it out. And guess what the earlier SB team and the Obama-era SB teams had: OFFENSIVE LINES! Funny how it works like that. Daniel Jones cannot throw a deep ball with a year behind his line, but he does have one. So I think the talk of paying Geno maybe should happen in the same quadrant of doing what the rest of the league does and paying for guards and tackles to protect the QB, whoever that guy is. And the pressure should go upward from McDonald to Schneider, because now that Schneider is really running the show it should be on him to make this engine go, otherwise he’s expecting miracles and that cannot be “schemed” or coached. Talent matters.
If we're lucky, the 49ers are much worse than we've given them credit for based on their recent success in past season. They're 0-2 in division, so they might actually feel worse than the Seahawks do.
And that means they are going to come out pissed off and ready to crush people. How the Seahawks respond to that will tell a lot about the nature of this team.
Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers offense are really good at all the things we've struggled to contain on defense the last two weeks. They run well, they set up short passes for yac opportunities, and their QB is slippery when pressured. Geno and the offense are going to need to keep pace, because the defense ain't gonna improve much in three days. We can't win without running the ball.
The first game back from an injury often is a game where the player plays below the level expected. That seems to happen more often than not. Baker, Leonard Williams, Nwosu, were all in that situation. Nwosu was injured again, and Williams did he get re-injured? Jones was disappointing, and Hall disappeared after the first defensive series where he got another sack. But pressure was lacking.
Our OL gave up a lot of sacks. Too many to expect any kind of efficiency in the passing game, and early in the game, our running game sucks. Once the opponents are tired, we can muster some run blocking, but early in the game it seems non-existent.
I am wondering if it isn't zone coverage which keeps getting burned. I hope Woolen is OK because our third CB, Brown, was getting torched and breaking down like the weakest link in a rusty old anchor chain. They didn't care who was lined up against Brown, they always targeted him. But the RB out of the backfield was almost always uncovered. That needs to be fixed. And I wonder why they don't try Artie Burns, who always seemed to play at starter quality when he gets the chance. Tre Brown has got to be on a short leash after the stinker he put up.
Couple questions I heard brought up about Mac. Is it to much for him to HC and still be running the D at the same time? Everything Seattle defense did right the first few games, run fits, gang tackling, setting edge and QB pressure has just disappeared the last two weeks. It's not been perfect the first 3 weeks, but the last 2 seem to be another team were're looking at. Ryan Grubb. Let's see let's run K9 5 times and Charb 2 'x the whole game against the Giant's strength, the D Line. That makes perfect sense. Playing from behind is no excuse. Especially when you allow the Giants a full quarter or more possesion time offensivley than Seattle. Geno gets sacked 7 times (could have been more) when NY just pins their ears back not even considering run D. Seattle needs to reel it in. I'm seeing a lot of frustratiion in this team for this early in the season. Seattle is probably going to be embarrassed with Purdy sitting back in the pocket with no pressure. Injuries looks to insure that on the Seattle side. Let's call out Witherspoon as well, not just Brown. Pritchard might have potential. Offensively, DK fumbles just have to stop. It's easy to blame the O-Line for Seattle's offensive woes, but I think the scheme this last week was a headscratcher. I'm lookng ahead to the mini-bye and see who shows up at Atalanta to get an idea of what the rest of the season is going to look like. Seattle needs to hold on to some humility practice three things Vince Lombardi used to preach as the 3 keys to winning football. Fundementals, Fundementals and oh yes, Fundenmentals.
Sadly, it appears that Nwosu is the new Jamal Adams RE injuries. I know I'll probably get laughed at, but there is something energetically "off" with someone who repeatedly gets injured. Gotta protect your space better, buddy!
Well SJ you’ve often covered contracts. I’d say you can put Nwosu and Dre Mony into the how much we save category next year. Fyi style love Lockett (not at 2025 salary). That’s 2 of the DE/OLBs. Might make your draft prediction a little easier. Maybe take that Tyler savings and invest in OLine?
Good comment! I read this after I posted today's SJ about this same topic.
Yeah I figured something coming soon on the subject. We’ve likely seen enough.
Just wanted to note that two positions the NFL (and Schneider in particular) don't seem to value -- interior offensive line and linebacker -- appear to be where we're getting thrashed. And, as one of the 7% who didn't expect much this year, I take no joy in being temporarily right. As I said at the time, it's likely to come down to injuries. Those last two games are different if our DL is made up of the starters who opened the season, in part because that seems to take pressure off our LBs, and maybe even the DBs. Also, a side thought, but as we evaluate the 'Hawks drafting habits, it might be helpful not to bunch the history of the franchise into one basket. Different ownership groups have placed different constraints on GMs. And a side thought to that, remember at some point Ms. Allen will be reading the franchise for sale. No idea how that impacts our choices for this season.
Also, didn't we use to have a right tackle, name of Lucas? Seems like we've quit even hoping he'll come back and be of use.
Hey, honestly, I want to follow the Hawks when they are an interesting team. It appears that for the moment they are not fully formed at all, as much as I had hoped. This last game was a clear indication of just that. They are still interesting, but they are not as compelling as I had hoped.
Broncos looked AWFUL when we played, but it was a close outcome and
they’re * 3 - 1 * since then.
It’s early in the season, we don’t know what we’re watching yet.
All these guys are professionals (sure, some more fiercely / impressively than others), and “on any given Sunday…”
And how different would this thread be if the FG was good?
(tied with a minute left)
Clearly, Hawks haven’t hit their stride, and Niners are coming in frustrated,
but don’t mash the panic button yet.
Broncos season is fascinating, glad the Seahawks played them in Week !